File: bergeronhelene06-oh-barachoisappeal_M.mp3
Speakers:
HB – Helene Bergeron
PA – Peter Arsenault
KP – curator Ken Perlman
KP: Was there anything in particular about PEI music that you felt the audiences [for Barachois] reacted to?
HB: I don't think it was PEI music as such, because PEI has as many genres of music as anywhere else. But audiences everywhere they love comedy, and we presented it in a really natural way so that it was a universal type of comedy. And that's what people reacted to, combined with a lot of really good rhythmic music that came from the heart. And those were the things that people reacted to no matter where we would have come from. And just that we were from this really small place, from this Island that most people outside of Canada have never even heard of contributed to the fact that it made us seem fairly exotic (laughs).
PA: Like wild game.
HB: Yeah! So it was a very charming thing to most people from other countries, what we were doing; and we were doing some audience participation things that were pretty out there and original.
KP: Can you give me an example?
HB: Our big claim to fame number was the Coop Drum which is where we bring people from the audience and create this human drum kit which my brother Albert who was in the band – drum was his first instrument. So he was playing drums on people's heads – he would place these different sized buckets on peoples' heads. That was the one number that was our signature number, that people never forgot us for that.